Today is our eighth wedding anniversary! Eight years ago today was the most beautiful, crisp, blue sky Saturday in Connecticut we could ever have asked for. I can still feel moments so clearly from that day – literally feel what the air, the dress felt like on my skin. The memories from earlier are clearest: arriving to the Inn for hair and makeup in the dark of the morning, sitting on the bed to copy out my vows onto an index card while the moms and sisters milled around, stepping out of the car at my house, standing on the point in the breeze and sun waiting for portraits to be taken. It was a perfect, beloved day.
The eight years since then have been equally beloved. I am a words girl, and yet words could never express the relationship John and I have, or how precious it is to me. He is my other half, my best friend, the most loving dad, the first person I want to celebrate or cry or dream or do anything else with. He makes everything more fun, he holds everything together. He is principled, loyal, hardworking, smart, generous… I could go on :) God is so very good to have created him and to have brought us together.
And yet, we are still two imperfect people. We leave the dishes in the sink, lose our patience, snap at each other, disagree about how things should be done, argue over whether food in the refrigerator can be eaten. And so today, for this celebration of long-lasting love, I thought I’d share something practical that has been incredibly helpful in our marriage: specifically banning certain phrases.
Like us, I’m guessing you have phrases that, when uttered by your partner, (almost) literally send you through the roof. It’s like you can feel your blood pressure rise, your face redden, maybe some smoke come out of your ears — taking an otherwise level 5 argument to a level 10 in a snap. We have two:
The first: “What is wrong with you?” Which is usually expressed more like, “what is wrong with you?!?!?” This needles us, I think, because it implies that WHO WE ARE is the problem, not what we are doing or thinking.
The second: any variation of “calm down” or “relax” – because obviously, those are the least calming or relaxing words in the English language, and the last thing you want to hear when you are decidedly not calm nor relaxed.
For you, it’s probably other phrases. Maybe you can think of yours right now :)
Once we realized that these phrases had a unique ability to explode arguments, we simply decided to ban them. And for several years, we have, to great effect. Of course, we still get into arguments, but this simple change has helped us work through them in a more productive way and left us less bruised in the process. In fact, if one of us lets one slip on accident, they actually now serve as something of a pressure release valve, taking down the temperature a few notches.
How comforting it is that the smallest changes can make such big differences even in relationships as grand and complicated as marriage! Whether things seem hard or easy in yours right now, never hesitate to move the needle just a little bit in the right direction. It will make a difference.
Now, of course, I would love to hear: what is the phrase that is (or should be) banned in your relationship? :)
All photos by Tanja Lippert, who is the literal best. I opened up the folder to choose a few images for this post and didn’t get past our wedding morning – then thought it might be fun to share a few “behind the scenes” snaps. After all, after eight years, you’ve seen all the glamour shots already :)
While we did not originally have a trip to Connecticut planned for this summer, time on our favorite shoreline never disappoints. We’ll file this whole vacation under COVID silver linings :) Our 2020 trip looked a bit different than past years, even beyond mask wearing and hand sanitizer – as our last two trips were both for friends’ weddings, and were co-scheduled with Natalie and Joe. While there were no big events or cousins this time around, we made the best of it. Here are a few photos, if you’d like to see!
Naturally, much of our time was spent outdoors. We hiked at Avery Preserve, Candlewood Ridge, and Bluff Point (where we hunted for hermit crabs, a favorite from John’s childhood! Octonaut June was enthused.). That top picture is especially sweet to me – my father-in-law enthusiastically met the playmate needs of two children who had gone for months without much social interaction at all, and his and June’s bond was really cemented, I think.
It was an unusually warm week while we visited, so we spent lots of time cooling off at the beach and in the pool! Though the pool was a balmy 92 degrees, so cooling off was a relative term :)
And OF COURSE we spent plenty of time in Mystic, including repeat visits to Sift, MDI, and the brand-new Young Buns Doughnuts, which opened the week we were there! We scooted out to Noank, too :)
A major highlight: my in-laws’ driveway being re-paved. This involved lots of “big trucks,” with Shep is quite predictably ob-sessed with at the moment.
To indulge the other child, we also spent the morning at my family’s horse farm, where we scrambled around in the (400-year-old?) hay loft and pet a few noses.
My highlight? Celebrating Shep’s second birthday at one of our favorite parks, with all four grandparents. It was the most beautiful night, with yummy takeout from Mystic Market, wading at the beach, bubbles, and birthday presents.
We set up under this magnificent tree:
Dreamy, no? And here is the sweet birthday boy, gazing at his four beloved grandparents singing happy birthday to him.
Let’s zero in on that dessert for a minute, though, shall we? Hmm. Doesn’t look quite right, does it?
Indeed it is not.
We had carefully ordered a fruit tart from Sift, carefully toted it ever so delicately to the park… only to have the bakery box inadvertently tipped completely upside down by an unaware grandparent :) So, we stuck a candle in a pile of cream and tart and berries and glaze, which was less than nothing to look at but tasted exquisite. The birthday boy did not care one bit :)
Here is the tart before it met its demise, so you can fully appreciate the artistry!
It was a beautiful night and a lovely trip, made more precious by the fact that we’re not exactly sure when we’ll next see each other again, thanks to COVID and increased preschool exposure. Praying it is sooner than we can imagine!
Also, what a treat because 96% of you wanted me to share my guacamole recipe, so here we are! While I certainly believe this to be the most delicious version of guac out there, I honor and respect that you might disagree. Let’s discuss in the comments :)
My recipe is based off of Bobby Flay’s, which we discovered when we started making his nacho dogs a few years ago (thank me later). I did not grow up making guacamole (I also did not grow up eating it – it seemed green and suspicious and it just wasn’t a thing in my family), but as with so many other seemingly-fancy food items, I was introduced to it by John’s family and have been a convert ever since.
Without further ado, the simple recipe…
Peel and pit two ripe avocados and mash in a small bowl. Avocados are notoriously tricky but I find if I buy them green and firm they are ready about 3 days later.
Dice a jalapeno and add it to the bowl. Dice about 1/5 of a red onion and add that, too.
Add approximately 1 teaspoon of canola oil (makes it nice and silky!). I never measure this – just a small glug – but 1 tsp is my best bet.
Sprinkle over a generous shake of sea salt, then squeeze in one lime.
Mix it all together and give it a taste. If something needs tweaking, it’s usually more salt or more lime! We like to serve ours with blue corn tortilla chips.
How about you? If you’re a guacamole fan, do you like yours with cilantro? Tomato? Peas??
Though I was glad to have our photos organized (and VERY glad to have them backed up), the real culmination of my photo organization project was this: making printed photo albums of our life together. You all know how important family stories are to me, and having an actual book to look through to help us tell those stories was the next logical step – and to me, well worth the time and expense.
In turning to the project of family photo albums, my first decision was at what interval to print them. The vast majority of people seem to do yearly albums, but to me that seemed a bit excessive when I considered the full span of our (hopefully long) life together. Do I really want to have 60 photo albums on a shelf one day? While I would be exceedingly grateful to have 60 years of memories, I don’t think I need 60 albums.
I settled on one album for every five years, beginning with the year we began dating (our senior year of high school). The first album would run 2005-2009, the second, 2010-2014, the third, 2015-2019, and on from there. I readily admit the editing is only going to get harder in the thick of these family years, but I like that a five-year boundary forces me to focus on the best, most poignant, and most illustrative memories. The albums will be heftier than they would be if we were to do annual albums, but in a more concise package!
With our photos organized and the interval set, I found myself procrastinating on making that first album earlier this year. It took me a bit to figure out why, but I eventually realized: I was afraid of missing something. Unlike a folder on a computer or a blog post, I can’t just go back and make an edit if I realize I left out an important event or a killer shot a few months down the road. That was paralyzing!
What eventually tipped me over the edge? I believe it was one of you who posed the question: wouldn’t you rather have 95% of your memories and favorite photos in book form as opposed to 0%? When framed that way, the answer, of course, was and is yes. While not perfect, I also realized I could always slip loose photos into the album pages down the line if I later found a gem that HAD to be included.
To help ease my mind, I did send a quick query to a few friends and siblings who I knew might have snaps from our earliest years together, in the hopes of gathering up any loose ends. I also scrolled through old Facebook albums to download anything I could find that wasn’t already accounted for. Finally, I had a few dozen printed photos from high school and college that I didn’t have digital copies of, so I brought them to a local photo store to scan.
With my photos at the ready and my mind at ease, it was time to begin designing! But which photo album company to choose? Though I love the idea of using the same company for all of time, I quickly realized that was a bit silly: who knows which company will be in or out of business in 25 years?! So, I made the best choice I could for this first album, and am keeping my mind open for future albums.
For our 2005-2009 album, I chose Artifact Uprising. AU has an excellent reputation and we had used them for our parent wedding albums with great results, so they were my natural first choice. I chose the Hardcover Photo Book, 8.5×8.5″ size, in Midnight Blue, with 50 base pages and a total of 64 pages. It came out to just over $100 with a promo code. Though I’m happy with the end result, there were pros and cons.
What I loved about Artifact Uprising hardcover photo albums: — It would be hard to make an ugly album, even if you don’t fancy yourself a designer. Their layout options are simple and classic. — The album itself is great quality, and I loved the color options for the cover fabric.
What I did not like about the AU hardcover photo albums: — When centering text on the cover, there was no way to tell whether it was perfectly centered (heck, they even have guides on Instagram!). — The most number of photos allowed on a page is four. While I appreciate the restraint of their layouts, there were some events where I really wanted to have a grid of smaller photos, as in our wedding album. — I would really have preferred to have had an embossed title right on the fabric cover, but that’s only an option in their layflat albums (which didn’t feel right for this book; they’re also more expensive). I’m the type of person who takes dust jackets off books because I find them annoying, but if I did that with this album, it would just be blank. — Not knowing how many pages I would ultimately end up with, it was hard for me to choose the base number of pages and make sure I was getting the best deal. — You can only move spreads of pages around within the book, not individual pages. — It told me a BUNCH of my photos were too low res, which I found insulting, ha! While I appreciate the caution, they seemed to print just fine.
Though the list of cons is longer than the pros, I’m really happy with how our Artifact Uprising album turned out! We’ve loved having it out and flipping through it with the kids (June really likes the picture of me on a carousel, ha!). If you have any questions at all, I’m happy to answer!
For our second album, I’m considering a few other album companies, including Milk Books (who printed our wedding album!), Shutterfly, and Mix Book. If you’ve had experience with any of them, I’d love to hear!
This is also the last post in this photo organization series, so if I left any questions unanswered, ask away! So glad to have these out in the world, and I hope they’ve been helpful!!
